100,000 in Bangalore—and counting

It’s official. The very amiable Prabhu confirmed this morning that the print order for the paper had crossed 100,000 in Bangalore City today. A fact confirmed by CD later in the evening. Which means, staff statistician G Sudhakar Nair can pull out his pocket calculator—he never leaves home without it—tomorrow to calculate what the growth means in percentage terms.

By our reckoning it should be slightly under 50 per cent in four months’ time. But we could be wrong. After all, we are journalists. Not ‘arithmeticians’.

Should reporters cast their vote in a poll?

One of our younger reporters Shilpa P is on leave today. The ostensible reason is that she wanted to cast her vote in the Chamundeshwari by-election although the fact that tomorrow is her weekly off too may have helped her make up her mind quite easily (which is OK, because Shilpa has done some good work lately, especially with that Wipro guy’s story).

But here’s an interesting even if theoretical question: Should reporters and editors be casting their vote in political elections? By taking part in an poll, are we subliminally reinforcing our preferences which may translate into bias in what we write and edit? Or—the usual middleclass response—can we cut ourselves from the milieu we inhabit and become hermits?